Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

To some extent I do believe that Goodwin was correct about music videos having genre characteristics as it is common to see girl/boy bands to have dance routines and it is common to see rap videos having street images, women in bikinis with flashy cars such as the examples I've shown on my prezi. However, I don't think it's good to generalise about all music videos. There are bound to be some music videos that go against the generalisation.

There are several music videos that comply with Andrew's Theory. Goodwin suggests lyrics will make constant references to visuals on screen. Visuals will reinforce what the lyrics say. An example of this can be seen in the Griminal – Invincible music video. The lyrics depict a boy and girl in love, using personal terms about a relationship such as “we” and “us”. This is further emphasised on screen by the couple sharing an intimate moment on screen. Furthermore the lyrics lead up to the word “love” on screen this is then followed up by the ring reading love and the way the couple are together on screen, in love.

Genre characteristics are depicted as the certain traits associated with a particular music genre. For example a rock video you would expect to have the performance of a live band. For grime it adopts several characteristics of different genres as it is a new genre. Typical grime video’s you would expect them to have the following characteristics as a must; Jewellery, a narrative based story, hoods and ‘urban’ clothing, a trait of many grime songs is to perceive the artist as if he/she is just writing the music. This can be seen in American hip-hop video’s such as Stan by Eminem.

Notions of looking plays on the idea of gaze and the way someone in particular is seen. For example, in a lot of music video’s women are often presented according to Goodwin as objects. Notions of looking however is not just restricted to women, it may also represent men in a particular way such as controlling or violent as cheats etc. An example of a music video that slightly goes against the way women are presented is in the music video Please Don't Leave Me by P!NK. In the music video she plays the aggressive, controlling role that the man should, although she is dressed in revealing clothing which could support the idea of women being seen as objects. 

Additionally, the record label has a certain control over the artist they sign. It is ultimately up to the record label to decide what the artist should be represented as. For example, for women the label may require the artist to come off as sexy in order to appeal to men and reach that target audience. For men the same thought process could be applied, being represented as sexy would reach out to the target audience of women. This is crucial as particular genders are more inclined to listen to certain genres of music. E.g. women who are interested in urban music are more likely to listen to R&B. So men appealing as sexy would draw in women audiences.

As well as being part of the genre characteristics narrative is also its own category with in Goodwin’s theory. The narrative allows the music to come to life, like a story. It connects all the dots with in the categories that Goodwin identified. Narrative can either be fragmented or linear. Most music video’s today tend to be fragmented. This is typical of R&B and Grime as a genre. This however is not the case with Griminal’s music video. It uses a linear format, which is rather simplistic getting from point A to point B. It is only broken up by the chorus.

(I used a Slideshare presentation to help me with this)